We were made of stardust
by She who saw the winter
Summary: Post-Reichenbach, Slash, Sherlock/John. It really never was about leaving, Sherlock thinks. It was just about the unfortunate story of the farmer and his wifeand something that may have been called eternity.


**We were made of stardust**

_Beta: Jademac._

I don´t own Sherlock.

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Given previous circumstances, he sighs, greatly irritated at his current predicament, and the circumstances that put him there. He proceeds to understand afterwards-he has always understood everything at any rate anyway, patterns, colors, behaviors... so, not the point- perhaps not in terms of understanding then. It would, however, be more adequate and to use the tiresome but fitting word assumption. The world (this world) has become more unpleasant, more distant and more distasteful, and...for his eyes, it seems, at least –hateful, it has become even more hateful. He doesn't remember much about how he ended up here, in this alley, or sometimes a hotel room, whatever he happens to find –he just remembers running, and breathless stolen moments trying and failing to fell something called regret. An irrelevant human emotion he is supposed to feel, in aid of other inconsequential humans morals. Humans, and human crowds, dozens of different people -watching them is interesting for a while; he admits… their fears, their motivations, their passions…

But then it stops being enough, it becomes dull, like a grey and slow-motion picture movie making his brain rot in a sepia haze of ennui. But now nonetheless it appears, he has almost forgotten, those nights full of boredom and London-in full noise –calling for him.

This life he is leading now, it just happened, and then as almost all of the other things in this, it had gotten unappealing. He looks through one of the windows of the place that is harboring him tonight. And he knows deep down what it is that he is waiting for, the lone thing that made the world bearable. Jumpers and tea and...a heart, which he had been told he possessed. He catches sight of a brown-haired stray cat that is searching for leftovers in the trash and snorts; because of course it had to be marvelous-simple brown.

The man resting in the hotel bed he paid for, shifts and he supposes, he should feel sick about all this, but all he has now is cold regard and raw, trapped fury, along with memories of destruction and loss. Anything else is a waste of time.

The need of a dose of morphine -cocaine if he isn't being picky- is so strong that it makes his skin crawl and itch, but he just stands there, nevertheless and lights a cigarette perfectly still -ashes in his fingers and ashes on his mouth. Jim Moriarty moves once more on the rumpled bed in peaceful slumber and Sherlock Holmes thinks, it was necessary, it is necessary...

The cat drifts away, a shadow slipping slowly into the darkness. Carefully almost delicately, it vanishes. And he, ah yes, he understands.

* * *

><p>John stared, averted his head and stared again -he knew that he was a common lad-very common- if he compared himself with other peers he had come to know thanks to Sherlock and his unique form of...um, existing, common, indeed.<p>

He wondered idly, however, if seeing a liver in his cupboard –not any liver, no, but quite the gorgeous fresh one- and by heaven previous thoughts aside, he wondered if the lack of feeling it stirred inside his guts was common?

Probably not.

"The turtles, of course," Sherlock's voice reached his thoughts from the hall to the kitchen and he gave up entirely the idea of a having a warm and cozy night curled up in the couch watching crap telly with steaming tea.

"The turtles are the culprits, then?" he said appearing by doorframe, sounding pretty unimpressed –nothing personal, he just… the turtles had it coming? He guessed.

"What? No, of course not, John" and he wasn't offended, either at being treated like an idiot every hour, day and night. The violin concertos at dawn were a luxury now and the mutilated pieces of organs-a novelty, just like the weeks of utter silence- an introspection. A good life these days... well, if you took out the kidnapping, the running, the still-here Moriarty parts... a piece of cake, really.

"Well, that's a shame," he shrugged and shortened the distance to the sofa, his feet light on the carpet, and just as well Sherlock, in all his beautiful dramatic glory, rearranged to make room for him. Life was very good these days yes, that, or maybe, he just felt overjoyed since Sherlock Holmes had been shagging him for about a month now. "We could have had a lovely turtle soup, had they been" he joked, there was no immediate reply but then Sherlock rearranged some more and then, then he was seeing him with something shining in his eyes a half smile fighting to emerge and John, he swallowed hard, cleared his throat and could do nothing more than stare back because he was in love, he was in crushing, heavy, and crude love with this man; the genius, the violinist, the detective, the sociopath or more cruelly, all of them.

It became apparent, however, that staring would lead them nowhere, and so John decided that, well, if he was staring he should very much stare something useful, like Sherlock's lips and he did, which was quite clever and quite brilliant, as Sherlock moved again, and in only one efficient turn had him pinned to the couch in less than a minute.

And so there was heat –his heart beating in tune with Sherlock's, a love rhapsody made of drums and want-

They kissed wildly and tenderly and all the same. Sherlock insistent at his mouth, teeth grazing at his lips, hips bucking against hips and love, love, love he melted then, in Sherlock's being, between his arms just as night died out and he kept chatting, please don't ever let it stop, please...

* * *

><p>He will come back on no particular day, when every inch of Moriarty's web of crime has been disposed off. Sherlock has wiped all its traces from England thus far, and the previous year and a half he has spent in adjacent countries rejoicing in quite similar situations. He will give no answers and John will have forgotten all the questions once he sees him there –because John Watson will have nothing to say to a ghost.<p>

In the worst of the stages -and he has already thought of all the ways it will go, all of the ways it won't, and all the ways he can make it go- John will somehow, and by somehow, Sherlock knows it is impossible, but anyhow he considers it for his own vicious enlightenment. If the worst were to come indeed, John would realize that the two years with seven months he has been missing, freeing the same irksome world of one its greatest dangers, (a trifle point in his favor, John's infatuation with heroes and justice will do the rest) he has been living with the danger itself.

Sherlock wanders in his mind some more –John, John, John. It will be raining, it has to be raining- and for a moment the red goes unnoticed in the monochrome air, then he comes to his senses.

And all the men that lay dead at his feet in a pool of scarlet haze cause him to roll his eyes and struggle to hold onto patience he no longer has. Jim Moriarty is standing between them looking isolated and tainted in all the mess.

He walks to him, to Jim, to James, as he calls him these days. He snaps his fingers at the other's eyes to make him come back and when he does, he looks scared and small and slightly mad, nothing like the man he used to be or at all like he was before –Moriarty's intelligence in spite of everything, is still intact-

James clings to him and Sherlock lets him, even if every fiber of his being refuses to allow it. They stride out of the warehouse in the middle of the night. They are in Amsterdam and James has just killed the branch that used to serve him in this part of the continent, with bombs and his own hands.

At this point in the game Sherlock no longer bothers to keep dear Moriarty's psychotic instincts on a leash, he is so close, and John is almost within his reach he doesn't care about methods anymore. Only, if there are innocent people involved, does he interfere and ban James from doing them any harm –he isn't yet a monster, or, at least, he likes to believe as much. Also, John wouldn't want one of those as a flat mate, let alone anything else more intimate, and Mycroft's first talk about what was right and what was not when he was fourteen, was enough for a lifetime ...

A train takes them to Germany the next morning and sitting in his compartment, with James sleeping in the front chair, Sherlock estimates ninety-five days more to go before being back under Baker Street exterior door and in a blatant rain, surely.

* * *

><p>"You can't tell her," he growled, low and angry. "Sherlock, she is dying! You just don't-"<p>

"A text would be quite informal but," Sherlock trailed off, paying half attention to him and half attention to the microscope slides, he was tampering with, some kind of mud and poison, in John's opinion. The last case they had been working on, had been a boring and derided one until Sherlock had found a connection to four unrelated deaths that had happened the previous year, which had changed his initial impression, from boring and derided to radiant and glorious -so Sherlock's connections to Barth's had once again paid off, and here they were at bloody midnight in the same hospital as the dying wife (cancer, last phase) of the murderer was hospitalized.

"No, you can't text her either," John closed his eyes and massaged his nose.

"John, I-" Sherlock started in what John supposed was reasonable voice for calming his nerves. Sherlock was trying.

"We won't," he included in a very final voice.

"Is lying going to make her cancer disappear, doctor?" Sherlock asked in a no-nonsense modulation, in a logical hard emphasis.

"No," he answered defeated. And he knew he certainly had no arguments about that.

"Well then," Sherlock stated and turned in his chair to stand. "If it bothers you that much, I will talk to her alone. You can go with her child; I want to know about him too, specially the brand of lotion he uses." "Sherlock, they were in love." He sucked air down, his gaze anywhere but in Sherlock's path. "He killed to pay her hospital's fee."

"No relevance" He voiced, stopping in his tracks –to let John make his point.

"They loved each other," he whispered, without a clue in how he should continue.

"You seem to be under the delusion," Sherlock began sharply in what would turn out to be a very lucid and very painful truth, "that as we have been engaging in certain activities that no doubt generate some kind of romantic notion in you, something in me about this whole love concept has changed? No, you think I have softened, you believe I have formed emphatic feelings towards lovers, now." He finalized observing him curiously.

"Don't." John shook his head. "Don't keep that up, I- I will go talk to the kid." He remarked roughly, storming out of the lab. He couldn't bear to hear it, he knew. Delusion was just fine. Delusion was stunning in fact -and no, something in his chest was definitely not squeezing at the point of straining.

* * *

><p>As far as poisons go, Sherlock might have to say that love is the worst of all, a lost cause and a moving motor with vile gears turning to fight and to fit, a natural enemy of the thinking mind, a virus residing in the hard drive, corrupting the system, turning it to shreds of uncoordinated data. He has seen it first hand, the damage a poison –any variety- is able to produce and yet none as bad as the so called love.<p>

He despises it, love. And now the cold hate he has for the treacherous feeling has become even stronger –John Watson is the only one to blame because no matter how much he tried to not get poisoned, it failed.

He is fascinated by John, the same rush a good murder leaves in his bones or the thrill of the chase through the streets boiling his blood. And these days without him have been similar to what he feels after the case is over, after the chase is done… when it becomes no man's land, becomes so dry and suffocating, and never nearly sufficient. An ill-fated upcoming reality is that just as well, John may never forgive him and this will be only sand in his lonely waste.

Lust is relatively easiest in comparison to love, lust he can manipulate and use to advantage. John has been reduced at a quivering mess in his hands before; he can accomplish it again –it is a pleasurable sensation, having him raw and open and panting underneath him.

He can play with and even enjoy lust but he is not secure in regards of handling love –not on principle, it is just, he doesn't know how to and Mycroft, damn him and his predictions for all that are worth about it and about what happened with mother. He will smash them, however.

There are still seventy-six days more to go, but it could be less, as James is doing exactly what Sherlock has ordered him to, a puppet dancing as directed by its creator to a lovely, little tune. He still holds no memories and his distinctly autistic demeanor shows no signs of fading; neither does the violent side with the progress of the time. The harmful effects of the shot in his dear Jim are satisfactorily irreversible. When the deal is finished, Sherlock has made reasonable arrangements for James Moriarty to end his days in life imprisonment in a mental home, dosed up and in a permanent state of coma, until he rots quite permanently and literally –from skin ulcers and tissue degradation.

There will be no mistakes as Mycroft's people will see to it.

Sherlock honors Salzburg dawning-sky, and pauses to watch the blues merging with the oranges in a majestic blur, high and above of his old town and baroque architecture –he respects very few things, nearly nothing, but art he has always recognized. The closure is approaching fast and he knows lately his smiles have become quite pleased. He will be there soon.

* * *

><p>It was initiated with a text.<p>

The fight or anger on John's part, whichever it would be better suited to call it, at the incident with the dying wife lasted about two weeks. The case came to an end, the murderer was apprehended, and all in all, it was sorted out fine. Then they went with their lives as if nothing had happened, he kept going at his work, Sherlock stayed moody in his dressing grown, without a new case to concentrate all the while and the sex never seemed to lack in their nights.

Until one day, John came back from the supermarket (Sherlock's card steady in his hand) and saw it. Sherlock's usual black changes had stilled leaving only silence and a thoughtful disposition –which wouldn't be that odd, if not for the slightly distressed look he had when reading something on his phone.

John paled, Moriarty he thought as first option. His voice came more unwavering though, when he asked "Everything alright?"

Sherlock looked up hiding the faintest surprise. "Yes, yes John. How was the shopping?"

"Not many different from other days," he shrugged, taking out his groceries from the bags and putting them on the table.

"That's good, quite good." Sherlock said almost distracted as he stood and walked to the window, phone with him all the time.

He let it pass.

And then as perfectly as ever, in regards of habits, when a case was not involved, evening found them watching shitty-dramas on telly. It went from "No, no, NO! Of course she is not his sister!" in Sherlock's side of the sofa to a "I would have liked the surprise" as John's only complaint in the other part of the furniture.

That they would end up having sex after that, he should have been able to disclose, but never in his mind would he have been able to predict what would happen in the middle of the affair. He was panting with lidded eyes and sweat rolling of his skin, pinned to the bed with Sherlock's weight above him.

His breath uneven and his back arching at Sherlock's long digits' cadence inside his hole –the head board making a racket with each movement they made and no doubt tomorrow Mrs. Hudson would pat him with sympathy and just a bit of too much curiosity on the shoulder.

He was shuddering and trembling and just already too high when Sherlock finally entered him, in a graceful elegant movement. He was moaning just a bit too loudly at that and then Sherlock's tongue was on his chest, on his neck, and his hands were at his hips and everywhere and then, then, he was moving.

It was a dazzling dance, their beings as one –and just like that with his lover keeping him on the edge, but not really letting him go. Sherlock's fast respiration and his dilated pupils, the hard well aimed thrusts that made John writhe and tighten, while scratching Sherlock's back. With a frenzy meant to last, John closed his eyelids and yielded to all the sensations that Sherlock was inflicting on him.

Torture- the sweetest of them, as Sherlock pounded mercilessly hitting constantly the mark but backed down every time John was already there- all came to halt though after a few minutes of the same. He looked up startled because they weren't finished yet, and that was it. "You love me." Sherlock had said as if he was just beginning to believe it.

"You love me." He repeated almost frowning.

John didn't respond -he wasn't given the time to. Sherlock rolled off of him and out of him, and left the room taking his clothes –left his own room, actually. John stared at the ceiling, wondering what had just happened and shortly after a melody started to play; it was cold and unforgiving, a growing succession of violin cries, screaming hopelessness and wilting.

* * *

><p>Sherlock immediately identifies the piece the violinist is engaged in, walking towards his seat in the third row of the theater. It is the third movement of Winter, from Vivaldi's Four Seasons –an Allegro. He has arrived considerably late, if they are already at that stage of the composition. He had some matters to attend and now five factories that trafficked guns under disguise here in Sicily have been disbanded.<p>

Four Seasons, is what he used to play when the walls of the Holmes-estate became too tall and too grey for him to support, barely eight years of age and already starving to leave. Winter is by far, the closest he has come to transparency –in his hands, in his Stradivarius, that theme is his real essence beating and alive.

And he gave it up at nine, exactly because of that, there was too much of himself in it.

Sherlock tilts his head and leans against his sit –there are thousands of people surrounding him but none of them really exist, not here at least where his mind finds solace and distraction. Fifty-one days and perhaps then winter will succeed bringing spring. Just once more, a second chance –he will do whatever it takes to have it.

He checks his phone, it has no new messages -Jim is sedated in the hotel room, so, not a problem. The concert reaches its highest trice and then he has this curious urge of scrutinize every old message the phone hasn't auto deleted yet, pointless and senseless details, John's words almost all of them, concerning trivialities. Albeit, there is one from his brother too, it is the one he received the day he felt the need to play winter for the first time in twenty-one years again.

"He loves you" MH

It had been somewhat unsettling in a pleasant way, on a secondary level. He hadn't known what to make of the knowledge, and he had little trust in it being truth, as well. But then they had had sex, and it had become quite stupidly apparent –it was more than hero-worship, friendship and kindness from John's part.

It took some time for him to come to terms with the implications it carried, but the research associated with the popular culture, that it's admittedly overly trite in some aspects as, for example love songs, is nearly complete.

As the place bursts in applause and the virtuoso bows appreciatively, he has an inkling notion of silence roaring in his ears. He has the fort of what used to be his childhood house with mommy dying slowly in it, her brilliance and her faith perishing for the vainest of the causes in his very eyes.

He has Mycroft too young in a body of thirteen years that doesn't suit with his already adult mind, warning him on her decease. "It will destroy you" he says. He has nights full of questions and insomnia –playing entire pieces and distorted notes in the farthest wing. He has father leaving at dawn, who never really bothered to return and just more silence.

* * *

><p>"I know you can stop," John offered as if he were talking with a particular difficult child who had troubles with understanding and discipline. "So stop." And of course the twit would ignore him and keep up with the smoking and the grudge and the pacing, as long as he didn't reply to the oh so marvelous "Why's?"<p>

"Alright, alright." He nodded, sitting in his chair –looking the daily journal with true attention or as much as he could, anyway. "Go ahead; I won't help when you are choking in your own spit, for the successive lung failure you will develop."

"Is not like it would be your own problem, is it?" Sherlock answered insensitively, exhaling slowly the cigarette fume.

"I have nothing else to say" John turned the page and shook his head.

"If you told me why is bothering you so much" Sherlock started mildly interested –still clad in his dressing grown.

"Why would you want to know that?" And certainly, John had to admit he was curious about this sudden train of why's. Why would you care if the press misjudged my behavior? Why is so important to you to ensure that I get fed? Why would it bother you if they thought ill of me? It had begun just a few days after the odd night they had had with Sherlock's illustrious epiphany, which really wasn't that big of a secret, if you counted that he usually had girlfriends and steady relationships and he had never been interested in other men before but had dropped all of it, in favor of following one Sherlock Holmes around all bloody London.

"Common sense" Sherlock replied curtly.

"Common sense? Really?" And that traduced as anything but common sense. "You were doing alright, you were just fine and now you have cravings because of common sense?"

"Yes." And sometimes Sherlock sounded so much like his brother, full of condescension in disguised discomfiture -trying to not snap for once at the little humans with their plebeian minds.

"I don't want you to get sick" John said easily, lowering down the paper. "I am doctor and of all the persons I would prefer to not have to treat for cancer, you are on the top of the list."

"Why?" Sherlock asked quietly, just too quietly, rather contemplatively. He smothered the cigarette, threw it away and walked closer to John, kneeling right at his legs, resting his hands in John's lap and looking directly at him with those pale penetrating eyes, as if he was the most interesting puzzle he had ever seen; searching for clues to solve it, the mystery.

And there in Sherlock shaded eyes, at dim light of early morning, it turned so clear. Sherlock had not understood it, he had no previous data to rely on. He was not asking why to get the, because I love you so, John had thought, his great ego wanted to hear. He was just asking "Why would you love me?"

* * *

><p>Lille means being only twenty-nine days away from home, knowing it is the penultimate stop, knowing it will take less and less of him, to have his previous life back. Lille is to stand in the middle of a city plagued by history that refuses fade between thousands of street lights, shops and modernization –the grand carré, a proof in its own existence.<p>

Sherlock is expecting for the political dismissal of a corrupt minister, who happened to be Moriarty's alibi and his most excellent drug dealer, around all France –James is having a sympathetic reunion with him at the moment which means all should be done before noon, so he takes one of the most insipid ways of spending time in account and sight-sites.

The first thing almost all tourists do when in a new land is the purchasing of memorandum gifts for the people that is awaiting their return -depending on the nature of the relationship between them or the motive of the trip, the gifts may vary.

He can tell this about every person that is currently walking past him, like the man at his right who is on a business journey and for that skipped the last birthday of his firstborn child, a daughter turning sixteen probably. He will attempt an expensive French jewelry justification and just another wishing-you-well card. He will mail them and forget about it, until it is natal-day time again.

There is this woman at his left too –a single mother, carrying sweets and toys for her little boy, who stayed with his grandmother given his grandfather didn't approve the permission for him to travel and besides that, is a little sick. And there is more, much more, Sherlock tries to block it, all the information filling his senses… but is an impossible chore. The worst is that there is no one who may listen, who may be interested, amused even by the dull facts, someone who may justify such waste of energy and tolerance.

He steps on the same store the man with the family problems is in... is quieter there -a jewelry, a shining lush area filled with gold and silver and paltriness.

He roams the place and thinks about things he never said, he thinks about the way people apologize and the uselessness of it. And yet it doesn't stop him... acting like one of them, a ludicrous condition, thinking about some pendent for Missis Hudson, a combination of silver and green and about a pin, orange and gold, something in the shape of a flower for Molly. He thinks about Lestrade too and the grey fountain pen that is on the opposite showcase seems suitable.

He ruefully admits thinking about Mycroft as well and about black and white marble and crystal pieces but discards it, immediately.

And he thinks about John-

Which leads him to think about Mike Stanford an for all he figures regarding manners and society rules –the correct term to address what he feels towards him would be in debt. Because John Watson is one in a million and Sherlock is cognizant and thankful of every particle that leaked from the stars to mold him –defying anatomy and physiology, turning every part of his bones and every drop of his blood in a universe that is big enough to hold one lonely man that doesn't fit anywhere else.

He thinks about John and a ring.

A plain band, the simplest design he finds, in a square box –not velvet and not silk, just an ordinary wooden box.

The attendant asks him politely in heavy French if he is ready for his shopping and nods intently at his indications –looking curiously at the ring he has just pointed from one of the shop's displays counters and then at him, debating within himself if he should go further and congratulate him or just do his work and charge.

He opts for the first one and Sherlock only shrugs nonchalantly and takes his bag, turning on his heels.

* * *

><p>It wasn't that he was complaining, because he actually wasn't, but Henry Knight's case was complete, and fooling himself into thinking they were staying for vacations, was as counting Sherlock to do the shopping. "Would you tell me why are still here?" He asked patiently staring at the vast landscapes that extended over the horizon –his coffee cooling in with the morning breeze as they were sitting in one of those tables outside the inn. "Do we have another case?"<p>

"No" Sherlock looked at him from the rim of his own cup. "I thought it might prove entertaining for you to delay our return."

John narrowed his eyes. "Is this an experiment based thing again, then?"

"I believe you would call it –having fun?" Sherlock answered calmly, not bothering to acknowledge the accusation about illegal experiments with drugs and coffee in John's voice.

"Courting?" he added, leaving the already empty cup on the surface and straightening on his sit. "Sherlock… we don't-" he paused not having quite the right words and not really following where this was going. "I don't need –I understand you were afraid and I don't hold it against you anymore… and the courting?" John firmly met Sherlock's inquiring gaze at that. "Is more like dating but I don't really mind that we don't, you know, go outside doing the things other couples do."

"Things?" Sherlock lifted on fine brow immediately –his chin titled up "What kind of things?"

"Things you like to do together with your-" John swallowed. "With the person you are with" That works, he thought. "Yeah, ordinary things you like to do with them, and well, things you don't like doing, but for their happiness- you are willing to sacrifice like dancing and stuff." He cleared his throat, left the half empty cup on the table as well and got a little closed to the detective. "But with me, there's no need-"

"That's it?" Sherlock cut impatiently –his fingers tapping against the wood.

John nodded, shrugging. "That's it"

"Very well, get ready before eight and I will see you here," Sherlock stood and just like that –coat-collar turned up, high cheekbones and all, left.

John watched him go, wondering briefly if Sherlock was actually trying to take him on a date. And yes, even if a corpse was involved, which it most likely was to be… well, that would be... nice. He smiled and finished his cup.

The day passed relatively well, talking with the owners of the inn and reading old magazines they kept stacked in the lobby with illicit amounts of coffee.

At eight, Sherlock indeed showed up, his usual suit in place and an unusual amicable settlement. And, as John had naively presumed that for the night, Sherlock would go as far as to take him to dinner in a simple place like the ones they attended frequently for the takeaway, albeit somewhat more provincial, and with a killed employer at the work hours in that same place, maybe –in a even bolder presumption John imagined that there was no corpse and that it was just about the dinner-

Well, when he saw the desolated lands between Rough tor and Lower White tor after many hours of journey, it was quite-

"A farmer," Sherlock said detachedly, walking mechanically around the vestiges of stone. "He used to live here with his beautiful wife.

" "Sherlock?" John blinked –because there was no dinner and no corpse.

"He came to build the house in the loneliest place he could find with high hopes no one would ever take her away from him. He loved her that much, apparently." And then he stopped the pacing, looking thoughtfully at the moon.

"And umm, this is related to us because?" John titled his head curious –hands in his pockets-

"No one ever knew what happened to her after that-" Sherlock said, crossing his arms behind his back. "He might have killed her, after building her a castle -as his only advantage was that, the money. She might have given him two gifted children in appreciation, but he might have forever been afraid, always so afraid of her brilliance and her beauty… that in the end he might have left. And she might have started dying of sadness because of that." He almost snorted. "She would have died anyway."

John looked at him with both brows raised and with many doubts. "What are you-"

"You could be the farmer or the wife, which one would you choose John?" And suddenly Sherlock was there, grabbing his arms and searching for something –always the same something- in his eyes.

"Whatever you have not chosen yet, I will take," John nodded –the soldier resolution in his posture.

And if Sherlock was surprised, he didn't show it. They drove back soundlessly and then they were back in the village, in a empty little opera house, and "I realize you wanted to dance –were hoping for a dinner and a murder but unfortunately as you see I lack the food and the deceased person, so you might as well give me your hand."

And John almost turned away and ran because it had to be prohibited, sneak into a place like this just to dance –it had to, because once when he was little his mother had taken him to enjoy La Traviata and even if he had fallen sleep in the second aria, well, he remembered the imposing and the magnificent of the building.

Sherlock took his hand, not minding his protests and then when he pulled him closer, John couldn't care less about imposing –they danced and it had no music and no magic but he ended giggling anyway and after a few minutes Sherlock's deep laughter followed.

* * *

><p>Eleven days and trapping Sebastian Moran is an irony –own its context.<p>

"I should get myself a living one." And Moriarty already had it, he just didn't think the good colonel would feel that way.

Sherlock's plans seem a bit disturbed, though. As it is Jim kills Seb and Seb kills Jim in turn before dying, because he wouldn't bear to leave him alone in this awful, awful world and Sherlock has to forget his initial plans and work with what he has.

They are both dead at least –not like the first time when Jim pretended to suicide, and Sherlock had to shoot afterwards leaving him autistic, no, this time is real –worms and rigor mortis and clotted blood.

Is over, he is finally free.

* * *

><p>And then Jim Moriarty was caught for trial…<p>

* * *

><p>He is well ahead of the agenda and thus the remaining three days marked on his almanac reduce to zero –he is finally in London now, and more than that he is two blocks away from Baker Street, just two blocks. Sherlock stops and breathes deep –it is boring, is dull, but somehow it was missing all the time, he was howling and existing and his footsteps in it resonate like forgotten scores in an abandoned auditorium, they sound like a half written intent, varying and waiting.<p>

And then there is just one block left. He walks through it at a normal pace, not too fast, not too slow, with his usual set of clothing and a few years more over his person than when he had gone -it feels like being a stranger in your own skin, an outsider. 221 B, Baker Street is at length in his range of vision, and it's so very easy to remember then, how he used to live here with his experiments and cases and his city spreading wide before his gaze. Oh yes, he remembers the nights full of thrills swirling like a kaleidoscope of colors and the days full of calm painted in erratic gray lines over a white canvas with the clock tickling, and just too much stillness.

And there was a family too, a family he didn't want to have but ended up having anyway-

And then Sherlock is in front of the door, he knocks and he is aware of the arrhythmia and the trembling as he hears the shifting on the other side, the searching for the keys and the nearness of the steps –he closes his eyes and asks for redemption inside his head… please, please, please.

Mrs. Hudson opens the door just as he opens his eyes –and then when she lastly sees, observes him, all the color drains from her face a hand goes to her mouth and Sherlock should have expected her old heart wouldn't be that strong to take it anymore but it does. She supports her weight on the doorframe and almost, almost, but not quite faints, she is that tough - she has always been that brilliant. And so when he is slapped across the face, it is no wonder that he feels human, forgiven and home.

Mrs. Hudson hugs him afterwards and they go in the house –to his flat, what used to be his flat that now is empty and with no traces of John whatsoever.

They drink tea and she smiles when he huffs and gives her the necklace. She is for the greatest part as he remembers her being, except she doesn't suffer from hip pains any longer and Sherlock is a little bit less than eager regarding differences he wasn't there to witness.

"Your flat has been paid by your brother since the doctor left, dear." She says pouring another cup of tea for him. "I don't know anything about where he is now."

Sherlock accepts the food, the tea and her talking –he knows she really doesn't have the slightest idea about where John is currently living.

"I will come back" He promises at the door even if she seems uncertain and already sad.

"I will," he repeats.

Sherlock hails a cab and gives Mycroft's club address –he passes the mail on the way and writes two short curt notes with the packages he sends, one at the morgue and one at the Yard.

Sneaking inside the club is easier than paying the cab. Mycroft is there, he hasn't found him yet, but he senses it in his blood, and in his mind. They are brothers and two sides of the same distorted mirror.

And, of course, his brother dear wouldn't be with all the gentlemen enjoying silence and reading, but purposely apart. Mycroft is looking quietly through the great windows, when Sherlock finds him. And he knows that gaze so well, Sherlock recognizes all of his brother thoughts –they are between mother and father and humanity and just nostalgia in general.

"I thought you might never return" is what his big brother greets him with.

"I did as well," he answers, because sometimes it had just dragged on and on, and then other lesser times he thought about really dying or never coming back.

"What should I do now?" Mycroft asks looking tired -a soil in his entire pristine demeanor. Sherlock is familiar with that expression, it is the same one Mycroft wore when he found him alone and overdosed in one low motel for the first time.

"Apologize?" Sherlock answers mockingly, because he can't deal right now with their issues and truths and things he really never forgot or forgave.

"Has that ever worked?" Mycroft doesn't waits for a reply and it is like when they were little and played chess, and Sherlock won one time of five, bitter and angry, since Mycroft just would let him win in the end never minding Sherlock's opinion on the matter.

"No." He says clipped and sour.

Mycroft nods and sits –a glass of scotch in his hand. "You doctor has been living in Sussex since the previous autumn."

"Is this your idea of joke?" He all but snarls with his fist clenched and the last of his self-control.

"I am currently lacking the humor for that little brother." Mycroft drinks almost half of the glass in one go and that talks about his feelings more than words would ever told him. "He just wanted to be away from London and every thing that reminded him of you, yet the irony in that is that he went to the place you grew to accomplish it."

"You told him about our childhood?" He queries tersely flopping down in the spare sofa Mycroft keeps for decoration.

"No," Mycroft concedes opening the two first buttons of his shirt and rolling his sleeves. "I didn't deem it necessary."

"I see." And Sherlock does ultimately see what he was not observing, wants to hit himself for not noticing earlier because now is so clear to perceive where all of this is connecting to, in a bizarre unbelievable extent… the nostalgia, the liquor, and his fatigue. Mycroft is just starting to feel human needs and is not even realizing it. Sherlock can't sincerely believe there was a person stupid enough to get involved with his brother but evidently there is.

John is an exception –but John is also already claimed.

"What is their name?" Sherlock all but curls in the couch –taking his shoes and coat off, an unmerciful teasing gleam in his eyes.

Mycroft startles for the briefest moment and then he recomposes himself, he is barely smiling when he does –and is not sharp or cruel and Sherlock feels terrified and threatened, the amusement gone in an instant because it's serious then and it means… changing…

"You should go to John." Mycroft offers impatiently already reading his mind.

"I can wait another day," Sherlock turns and feels like sleeping, like complaining, and like defying. He is weary and insecure. And it is true, he can wait one more day for whatever verdict John sees fit to throw at him. He is ahead in the schedule anyway.

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><p>Sherlock finds John's house thanks to an old lady that praises the new local doctor with enthusiasm -he doesn't manage the courage to present himself at the door, so he waits and he hides. He observes John's routine and watches him walk every day, sitting on a bench in the park that is just in front of a bookshop he used to visit as a child.<p>

He is disguised of course –John hasn't changed one bit.

He watches and watches and really never makes a move –John has a dog now, and he presumably had a wife before. Sherlock wants to scream at that but at least he has the consolation that it wasn't a man.

He is always on the bench and John always looks at the wall in the bookshop but never at the park. He thinks about giving up, John doesn't look particularly miserable, and as he had a wife before, he can get another one –have children and be pathetically normal.

Perhaps Sherlock was just a novelty and all the talk about love was indeed only friendship and admiration. Perhaps he was the fool in love since the beginning –since that fateful day in the lab with Stanford and chemical research. Perhaps he might have always understood why his mother died of sadness, but really didn't want to admit it…

And thus he can see it all like a movie replaying in his head, the pictures moving in little white and black squares to form a film. A film of what will happen if he just leaves again –after a year or so he picks the few belongings he has, he stops to see John's little house one last time, he sees the dog barking and the ill-kept garden. He memorizes it and locks it with all the knowledge stored about John.

He goes as himself to the practice and just stands on the street –he drifts slowly to a place far from there and in the process he hears an echo of something breaking but he doesn't really bother to check what.

Sussex has one more reason for Sherlock to never return to it, and he longs to meet with London again after running away to the countryside a second time –London will take him back tenderly, will grant him many escapes, and he will take them grateful, and he will remember why he was in love with it's cloudy sky and dirty lanes in the first place. He will pledge to it eternal love and will try to fix his first marriage.

Mrs. Hudson will give him his old flat back and Mycroft will help with the other half of the rent –he will go back at the Yard.

He will take morphine and cocaine as daily food, and John will appear in the hallucinations, real and ethereal. He will yell at him to leave, he will plead at him to stay and then in the morning when all has passed he will take the needle once more -the cold metal biting his skin and dilating his pupils.

Lestrade will try to make him search for John just once, once again. And he will always refuse, sharply and poisonous, but then one Christmas it will be too much for him to cope with. He will be weak, and he will go back to Sussex to the same house -it will still have the same dog but not the same garden. It will be nourished and well kept with two bicycles parked on the grid. And he will stare, overwhelmed, and his brain will say it disdainfully, what he already knows but doesn't want to hear –oh yes, two children and about the seven years of marriage. She loves gardening and is a teacher. They are in love…

But then it all freezes to a stop –someone is at his bench, and that someone has a cake and is fighting with that and grocery bags, he puts it all in the space between himself and Sherlock and then talks, "Bloody machines and you don't mind my bags, right lad?" He seems genuinely concerned with his answer so Sherlock turns and shakes his head. John is at his bench and he has forgotten the seventeen languages he knows. "Well, then I will just put it all together and be on my way."

And his hands (Oh, Sherlock knows them, they are kind and a little callused) start picking one by one and Sherlock would not make it without him and it will be mummy's story repeating itself. John stops when all is done and says a polite goodbye –he is limping and he is hurting on the shoulder-

Sherlock watches him go and the next day –he waits in the same bench hoping…

And John does appear, he turn his head from the wall, looks at him and waves his hand. Sherlock had never believed in anything more than himself and science but is getting harder each passing day... and he needs something to hold on to.

The days fly and John comes and goes –he stops to rest at the bench sometimes and talks to him: "The football match, it was a wretch, right?" And Sherlock begins to watch telly and read newspapers and books of human sociology so much that his brain suffers from the load of rubbish it downloads all the days. "Yes, did you see the unnecessary of the penalty?" He answers and John smiles and then all the inanity he has been feeding himself with is worth it.

On other days John just inclines his head at him and keeps walking.

And then one Sunday John stops by the bench again and asks if he is a homeless, because he really doesn't look like one but he is always there and "I am on vacation." Sherlock answers quickly and John accepts it but he frowns anyway.

"And you will spend them here?" He says and Sherlock wants to answer that yes, here is amazing and that here is glorious… and you are here! but instead he fakes a perfect German accent, shrugs and "I am not English and I don't know were to go" John blinks and "I could try to show you around," he offers and is Sherlock turn to smile.

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><p>"You might think I am crazy, but sometimes I think I have known you from all my life," John says, sprawled in the bench… their bench. Sherlock shifts in his sit and aches to tell him that yes, they have known each other quite a while –and you are the only person who would ever known me that well so please, just observe, stop seeing… observe.<p>

"I-" Sherlock stops, he doesn't think he will ever be able to tell him, but a month has been spent in this façade, and he is starting to ponder on the necessity of ever opening up. And as it is, he certainly could hold the lie for the rest of his life, make John fall in love with this German, who is a good man –he has researched, he knows how to fake modals and tact, and this person he is right now was carefully selected, to suit John's type. Not a weird detective who loves puzzles and eccentricities, and has large periods of depression but an average gentleman.

John would be happy with it. "What do you think of lies?" He asks instead, looking to some mediocre people walk the street.

"They are not good," John shakes his head sadness over his eyes –an exasperated smile on his lips. "No, I mean I don't like them."

Sherlock breaths deep and he knows its time. He will not manipulate now, it will be John's decision alone to make –he alters his faked voice to his normal tone, and "It's a trick, a magic trick." John's head turns so fast –his eyes wide.

"It was a trick, and the rest lies." Sherlock says, lifting his hands –taking off the blond wig, the green contacts and the rest of the makeup.

And then Sherlock Holmes is real again and whatever the result this may have, given the chance he would go and repeat it a thousand of times if it meant saving John Hamish Watson every single one of those, because Sherlock is an egoistical creature and he would never permit the destruction of his own universe –that dazzling universe made of stardust and cotton wool.

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